The Coming of Autumn by Hongren

The Coming of Autumn by the 17th-century Buddhist monk Hongren is the most celebrated Chinese landscape in HoMA’s collection. Visitors who enjoy the rare opportunity to view this scroll might think it is far removed from chaotic world affairs. They would be wrong.

Hongren was a war refugee. When the artist was thirty-four, Manchu forces descended upon the Ming dynasty empire (1368–1644). As they advanced, Hongren fled his home in the Yellow Mountains of Anhui, making the week-long trek some 400 miles to Fujian on the South China Sea. There, remnants of the imperial family had set up a resistance movement, which he joined. The resistance failed. Hongren survived, but as with countless others, his life changed forever. The Manchu Qing dynasty (1644–1912) attempted to recruit scholars for their new administration. Some joined them; most did not. Hongren instead became a Buddhist monk. His motivations were probably complex, and not necessarily limited to avoiding the new government—he seems to have thrived as a monk, as much as anyone could thrive in those difficult transitional years. We know little of his previous life, but his surviving paintings were all made after the resistance, and The Coming of Autumn is the finest of these works.

After so many centuries, we should be careful not to ascribe the artist’s intention based on limited details of Hongren’s life. However, people are notably absent from the scene; we might be justified in drawing a comparison with empty streets in cities around the world torn by conflict. The painting is also devoid of atmosphere—not a cloud, or the faintest breeze, is anywhere to be seen. Hongren might very well have been referencing the oppressiveness he felt as what is called in Chinese a yimin, literally meaning a “leftover person.” We can certainly sense in his stifling, if exquisite, world our own breathlessness at the anguish we feel for the suffering experienced by millions of refugees today.

— Shawn Eichman, Curator of Asian Art

Hongren (1610–1664)
The Coming of Autumn
China, Qing dynasty, 17th century
Hanging scroll; ink on paper
Gift of the Wilhelmina Tenney Memorial Collection, 1955 (2045.1)